The Milwaukee Public Schools budget is trying to balance growing classroom support with eliminating a $46 million budget deficit next year.
The district’s plans to do so are outlined in the proposed budget for the 2026-27 school year. Plans include an increase in teaching positions, reducing the number of assistant principal and administrative staff and cutting spending on services outside the district.
Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said MPS is at an “inflection” point, and that the budget will help the district accelerate student achievement and create safe schools and welcoming schools for all.
“We had to make very tough decisions that have impacted talented colleagues that we respect and care for,” Cassellius said in a press release. “At the same time, we have an obligation to our students, their families and the taxpayers of Milwaukee to use these resources in a way that will take MPS in a direction that is sustainable and effective.”
The district will present a summary of the budget and listen to comments from the community at the Strategic Planning and Budget meeting at 5:30 p.m.Thursday, May 7 at the MPS Central Office, 5225 W. Vliet St.
Resources realigned from offices to classrooms
The district is eliminating 53 administrative staff positions and another 53 assistant principal positions, the press release said.
As part of the district’s Standard of Care guidelines, schools with enrollment under 350 generally won’t receive an assistant principal. Schools with more students get an assistant principal for every 350 students.
District embraces ‘Standard of Care’ to reduce class sizes
Starting next year, the district will assign teachers to schools depending on new class-size guidelines and enrollment in each grade as part of its Standard of Care framework, according to the budget summary.
The goal of the centralized staffing model is to create more coherence and distribute resources more equitably across schools, according to MPS.
More teachers and paraprofessionals to support smaller class sizes
Teacher and paraprofessional jobs are some of the district’s greatest proposed investments.
The district will allocate an additional 138 paraprofessionals and 150 teachers to classrooms as part of its plan to reduce class sizes.
Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association Executive Director Amy Mizialko said everybody would like smaller class sizes, but the goal may not be rooted in reality.
The district doesn’t have enough teachers or the structures to make smaller class sizes a reality, she said.
“That’s why it’s so important to retain the workers we have, and to supplement that as much as we can with recruitment,” Mizialko said. “Both retention and recruitment are made far more difficult by the completely avoidable damage Cassellius is doing to the district.”
Casselius has publicly defended the changes as necessary to address the budget deficit while prioritizing teachers. She also said that many of the individuals who are losing their jobs can be rehired into classrooms.
District cutting spending on outside contractors
The budget proposes cutting $130.2 million in outside contractor services.
Participation in breakfast program to increase
Stephen Davis, MPS media relations manager, said the district is hoping to increase breakfast participation by 15% next school year.
“We are serving more hot breakfasts than we have in the past,” Davis said. “The students are also seeing more choices at breakfast, especially at the secondary level.”
To better reflect what’s being charged to the breakfast program, the district reduced expenses for breakfast in the budget by $3 million and increased food costs in the lunch category, Davis said. The food and portions served at breakfast and lunch will stay the same.
Still, school nutrition fund costs are growing faster than federal government reimbursements, so the district has to pull $2.5 million from the general operations fund, the summary said.
Mental health and arts program staffing remains stable
Mental health positions including counselors, social workers and psychologists “remained stable,” the budget summary stated.
The district will staff one new psychologist but is losing two social workers and eight counselors.
In April, the district announced it will add five new psychologist positions, funded by a Mental Health Demonstration Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
MPS media relations manager Stephen Davis said the district hasn’t determined yet where it will place these psychologists next year.
The Standard of Care currently aims to have one social worker, counselor and psychologist per 500 students at schools across the district.
The district is “maintaining strong support for art, music and physical education teaching positions,” a press release said. The district will hire six new positions in these departments next year.
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
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